A group of former DuPont employees is suing Chemours Co. for fraud, claiming the company tricked them into accepting a cheaper severance than it later offered other employees.

Fillings in the Delaware District Court and New Castle County Superior Court say the deal they accepted cost the individual plaintiffs as much as $102,000 compared with a later offering.

Company officials did this in an effort to "induce employees to forgo a richer benefit package ... and thereby reduce overall costs of its employee workforce reduction," the lawsuit states.

In court filings, Chemours denies wrongdoing.

In 2015, DuPont spun off its performance chemicals division into a standalone, publicly traded company known as Chemours. As part of that process, DuPont trimmed its performance chemicals division through involuntary layoffs and an accompanying severance package. The package offered employees a maximum of 12 months' salary and other benefits.

Workers in that division who were not laid off became employees of Chemours. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were in that group.

Shortly after, Chemours announced further workforce reductions through an optional severance program offered to employees.

Workers were given a two-week window in which they could sign up to receive a lump-sum severance capped at a maximum of six months of their base salary.

During the window to volunteer for that program, Chemours employees believed the company was planning future job cuts through involuntary layoffs.

The rumor was that program would carry a similar package — capped at 12 months of base salary — to the one that DuPont implemented before the spinoff, court documents state.

"Chemours was abuzz with rumors of such a possibility," the lawsuit states.

Because of the rumors, many employees were reluctant to sign up for the voluntary program that offered only six months' salary, according to court documents.

In order to allay these concerns and spur participation, Beth Albright, Chemours' senior vice president of human resources, sent a companywide email on Oct. 20, 2015 — less than a week before the window to sign up for the voluntary program ended, the lawsuit states.

That email confirmed the rumored future involuntary cuts but said that severance would be more akin to its voluntary program than the former DuPont layoff program.

"The Oct. 20, 2015, email was transmitted ... so that an increased number of employees would submit applications for the (voluntary) severance program," the lawsuit states.

Even so, participation in the voluntary program totaled only about one-third to one-half of the 600 to 700 former DuPont employees whom Chemours intended to cull, according to the lawsuit.

The company then announced involuntary layoffs in December 2015. The lawsuit claims the involuntary severance program offered benefits "substantially similar" to the previous DuPont program despite the representations in Albright's email.

The maximum severance under Chemours' layoffs was a year base pay, double that of the voluntary program plaintiffs signed up for months before. Medical payments, stock options and other benefits for those terminated were also higher than the voluntary severance and more akin to the DuPont layoff package, the lawsuit states.

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Chemours CEO Mark Vergnano(Photo11: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Because of this, the lawsuit claims Chemours made "material misrepresentations" when officials stated the involuntary layoff benefits would be dissimilar to DuPont severances before the spinoff.

Mark Giradot, a Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania resident, had worked at DuPont and Chemours for 32 years as of October 2015. The lawsuit states he relied on the Albright email to agree to the voluntary program. It adds that the company saved $76,000 on Giradot's severance through its "misrepresentations."

Likewise, Gerhard Wittreich of Hockessin worked at DuPont for more than three decades and relied on the email in his decision to take the voluntary severance. The lawsuit claims the company saved $89,000 on his severance.

Peter Butler, a Kennett Square, Pennsylvania resident who is also a plaintiff, took the voluntary severance and claims the company saved some $102,000 through its "misrepresentations."

The plaintiffs did not return a phone call seeking comment. Their attorney declined to comment. A Chemours spokesperson and an attorney representing the company also declined to comment.

In court filings, the company denies some facts alleged by the plaintiffs, including those about the Albright email.

The lawsuit said the plaintiffs seek to represent a class of Chemours employees that could be as large as 200 people.

The lawsuit alleges fraud, breach of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, violation of Delaware Wage Payment and Collection Act and other counts.

It seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the company.

The challenge was filed in New Castle County Superior Court in October, and recently a judge rejected a push by Chemours to dismiss part of the lawsuit.

A similar lawsuit was filed by the same plaintiffs in Delaware District Court claiming a violation of federal wage laws. That lawsuit was dismissed as irrelevant to those federal laws, and that decision is being appealed.